The following applications are related to the present disclosure and are incorporated by reference herein: a Provisional Application entitled “Method and Apparatus for E-Commerce Enabling an Object” by the same inventors, filed in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Jun. 30, 1999, and assigned Ser. No. 60/141,898; the utility application resulting therefrom (having the same title), filed in the USPTO on Nov. 30, 1999, and assigned Ser. No. 09/451,469 now abandoned.
The present invention relates to a multi-vendor Internet Commerce System for e-commerce application. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved architecture for enabling e-commerce in an efficient and consumer-friendly way for a plurality of vendors through the Internet.
Electronic commerce, or e-commerce, represents a highly convenient and efficient way for buyers and sellers to conduct transactions worldwide and at all times. In the current paradigm, the vendor having merchandise to offer typically implements a website at a vendor server, which may be maintained by the vendor's staff or hosted at a hosting facility. The vendor website typically includes a product database, representing the database of products to be sold, and a consumer database, representing the database of the vendor's customers and their profiles. To facilitate the transaction process, a variety of search, shopping cart, and checkout tools may be provided. In general, these tools facilitate the interaction between a specific vendor website and the consumer. On the consumer's side, the interaction typically takes place through an appropriate user interface at the client's terminal. In the current paradigm, one such user interface may represent a commercially available web browser such as Internet Explorer by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. or Netscape by America Online of Vienna, Va.
To facilitate discussion, FIG. 1 illustrates a simplified representation of a prior art e-commerce arrangement 100 between a consumer 102 and a vendor 103. To facilitate their electronic commerce activities, the interaction between consumer 102 and vendor 103 is facilitated through a terminal 104 and vendor website 108. As shown, both vendor website 108 and terminal 104 are connected to the Internet 106. To conduct an e-commerce transaction with vendor 103 via the Internet 106, consumer 102 typically utilizes a commercially available browser at terminal 104. By way of example, consumer 102 may enter the URL (Universal Resource Locator) for the vendor website into a browser 110 in order to access the vendor website. In the example of FIG. 1, the URL may be, for example, http://www.agoodwebstore.com.
The transmission of the URL from browser 110 to vendor website 108 is represented symbolically by path 112. Responsive to the receipt of the URL, vendor website 108 may return, over time, a plurality of pages to browser 110 on terminal 104 to permit consumer 102 to sign in, conduct searches among the items of merchandise offered for sale, and to make a selection. The transmission of a page containing one or more products for sale is represented symbolically in FIG. 1 by path 114.
At some point, consumer 102 may wish to select an item for purchase. In the example of FIG. 1, the selection of an item for purchase occurs when consumer 102 clicks on a shopping cart button 116, which causes a message that includes the description of the selected item to be transmitted to an electronic shopping cart associated with vendor 103 and to be added thereto. Generally, the electronic shopping cart resides at client browser 110 and contains items offered for sale by vendor 103. With reference to FIG. 1, the transmission of the description of the selected item is accomplished via a path 120. Once the selected item is added to the shopping cart associated with vendor 103, the process may proceed with consumer 102 continuing to search for and select additional items to be added to the shopping cart.
If consumer 102 elects to checkout, consumer 102 may click on a “buy” button 126 on browser 110, which sends a checkout instruction via a path 128 from browser 110 to vendor website 108, as well as the items in the shopping cart stored locally at the client browser 110. At vendor website 108, the receipt of the checkout instruction may cause an invoice to be prepared using the list of items selected (which is stored in the shopping cart at vendor website 108). Taxes, handling and shipping charges, as well as any other discounts or markups may be calculated at this point, and the final invoice may be presented to consumer 102 via path 130 as an invoice page on browser 110. Unless consumer 102 is already a customer with vendor website 108, the payment page may also include a form to permit consumer 102 to fill out any necessary personal, payment, and shipping data. Exemplary data that may be required includes name, address, credit card number, ship address, ship method preferred, and the like. Consumer 102 may fill out the payment data form and transmit the completed form back to vendor website 108 via path 132 to permit vendor 103 to, for example, charge the credit card indicated for the items purchased and to ship to the address specified.
Although the prior art e-commerce paradigm allows consumer 102 to shop for merchandise, select merchandise for payment, and complete the transaction at each vendor website in a fairly efficient manner, there are disadvantages. By way of example, since the process of entering the personal, payment, and shipping data is rather laborious, some vendors retain such confidential information at the vendor website to permit the vendor to furnish such information automatically the next time the same consumer purchases from that vendor's website again. In this case, the consumer is given a consumer ID and a password for authentication purposes on subsequent visits to the website.
As can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, however, the fact that confidential personal, payment, and shipping data pertaining to the consumers are kept at the vendor poses a security risk. The security risk is increased if the consumer purchases from multiple Internet vendors and may have his or her confidential data kept at multiple websites throughout the Internet.
Even if the security risk can be eliminated, the fact that each vendor website may issue a different set of consumer ID and password represents an inconvenience to the consumer. Although a consumer generally tries to keep the same consumer ID and password across multiple vendor websites, there may be times when, at a particular vendor website, the desired consumer ID and/or password is not available, and the consumer is then forced to choose another set of consumer ID/password. Over time, the average consumer may be burdened with having to memorize numerous sets of consumer ID/password and the websites that are applicable thereto.
As mentioned before, the consumer has the option to place items into an electronic shopping cart prior to checking out. This paradigm allows the consumer to conveniently tally his or her intended purchases prior to paying for them. Over time, consumers have come to rely on this shopping cart paradigm and rely on the shopping cart. However, since the shopping cart of the prior art typically works only with the website that issues it, a consumer shopping at multiple websites may have multiple shopping carts with items therein pending and waiting to be checked out. Since each shopping cart contains only items from a single vendor, the consumer must contend with multiple shopping carts and juggle among them to keep track of items selected. This makes it difficult for the average consumer to, for example, quickly determine whether the total cost for the items selected across multiple vendors fits within the consumer's budget, or to quickly compare an item already placed in the shopping cart at one vendor website with another item that the consumer may be considering from another vendor website.
Another disadvantage relates to the fact that the shopping cart of the prior art resides at the client browser (e.g., 110 of FIG. 1). If the consumer uses one terminal/browser to shop and place items into the prior art shopping cart but has not checked out and subsequently moves to another terminal to continue shopping, the consumer will be presented with another shopping cart, which does not have therein the items already picked and placed into the original shopping cart. This is so even though the consumer has been shopping with the same vendor all along. As can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, this is inefficient and creates confusion for the consumer.
Still further, the fact that each vendor website currently maintains its own consumer database and/or implements its own shopper authentication/ID mechanism, its own shopping cart infrastructure, and/or its web-based checkout infrastructure represents a significant barrier to entry into e-commerce for many vendors who have yet to implement their e-commerce website. This is because these infrastructures require a significant investment of time and effort to set up and maintain. Furthermore, since these infrastructures are set up and maintained at each website, the duplication in effort represents collectively a wasteful use of time and money for e-commerce vendors as a group.
Additionally, the fact that each vendor website implements its own shopping cart and checkout facilities, the user interface of the shopping cart and/or the checkout page as well as the navigation steps involved therewith may vary widely from vendor site to vendor site. From the consumer's perspective, the effort required to learn different websites and become familiarized with their shopping carts and checkout procedures may discourage some consumers from fully utilizing the rich offerings of products and services on the Internet.
In view of the foregoing, there are desired improved architectures and techniques therefor which enable e-commerce in an efficient and consumer-friendly way for a plurality of vendor websites through the Internet.